Wednesday 24 December 2008

Keeping up to date

The readership of the blog is growing.

I know it is because when I ask people if they read my blog, I get a lot of positive responses. I also hear people promoting the blog as a useful source of information about the TQS.

It's great having plenty of visitors to the blog and knowing that people like it.

If you would like to know each time it is updated you can sign up to receive the blog using the Subscribe to service. This will ensure you are kept up to date on all that is being posted.

You can become a blog follower. You can do this publicly or anonymously. Click on the Follow this blog statement at the bottom right of the screen to learn more.

What's coming up in 2009?
When I have been speaking at events or working with training organisations recently, people have been asking me what is happening on the blog in the first part of 2009.

Well, there is a lot to post about.

For example, there will be another success story fairly early in the New Year, plus more in the three questions series.

There will also be more about the TQS journey and a series of posts on the differences between Part A and Part B of the Training Quality Standard.

However, that is all for the future.

The next post will be early in the New Year. It's time for a holiday now!

Tuesday 16 December 2008

Planning the TQS Development Journey (3) – Have you put your own house in order?

The FE sector understands initiatives.

There have been projects, awards, imperatives and opportunities to innovate in the sector for just about as long as anyone can remember.

Most of us who work in, or with, colleges and work-based learning provider organisations know how initiatives usually work.

  • You have an idea.
  • You find a champion, or a group of supporters.
  • You obtain an amount of funding.
  • You create a pilot project.
  • You use the pilot project to refine your original plans.
  • Finally – and somewhere along the line – you roll out a modified and must improved version of the original idea to the whole organisation.

If that’s how you’re planning to work with the TQS, there is one thing you can be certain of. Your journey will take a long time.

Why?

Two really important concepts, as far as the TQS is concerned, are consistency and standardisation.

In order to get consistency and standardisation in an organisation, you need systems and processes.

You need your systems and processes to be applied across your organisation. Then you need to track the use of those systems and processes so that you can be confident that they are being implemented.

You need to know, and to be able to demonstrate, that your approaches and ways of working are embedded into the life of your organisation.

Putting your own house in order – as far as the TQS is concerned – is about getting those systems and processes up and running as soon as possible.

You know, for example, that the system for establishing business benefits with employers when you come to discuss training solutions needs to be in place and operating quickly. Without this system in place you will not be able to generate evidence for parts of A2.

You also know that you need a mechanism for measuring the impact of the work you do with employers - actually with employers themselves. You need to be able to do this to help you to address A4 and, of course, A5.

Therefore, take some time to get these things set up now. It will save you time later on. It will also help you to be realistic about when you will be ready to seek certification.

Monday 8 December 2008

Planning the TQS Journey (2) First things first

Now that you know what you do to help employers, you can begin to ask yourself the really important question.

What difference do your interventions make to employers?

If you did nothing would the employer be better off? You hope not, but how do you know?

Is the employer more profitable or, in the case of public sector organisations, is the organisation achieving more of its objectives, as a result of your interventions?

If you don’t know, you need to find out.

Set up the audit trail when you first begin to work with an employer.

Think about business benefits. When an employer chooses to work with you, what’s in it for the employer?

Think about key performance indicators – business performance indicators, that is.

It’s hard work establishing the right KPIs but you need to do this so that you’ll have something to write about when you get to the stage of working on your TQS application. You’ll need the answers to help you with A0 and A5.

Start working on these issues now.

Be prepared to work on your system for several months before you seek certification. You will need to show that you are actually identifying business benefits, setting performance indicators and measuring your success.

Monday 1 December 2008

Planning the TQS Journey (1) What exactly are you trying to do to support employers?

Do you know?
Do your employers know?

Thank carefully about your answers, because those answers should be linked to what you know employers want.

I wrote about what employers want in an earlier post. You can re-read it here.

However, here’s what you need to do to help you to be clear about where you’re going.

Review what you currently say about how you support employers. (If you don’t have such a statement, then here’s your starting point.)

Remove everything from you statement that refers to: training, qualifications, courses, NVQ, Train to Gain, Apprenticeships, funding, skills . . . You get the picture.

Then remove any statements about helping employers to build a skilled workforce, or to meet their business objectives, or to solve their problems, or to become more profitable etc.

Why? Well, it’s aspirational and fuzzy and every one promises to do these things, so to get their business you need to do more – a lot more.

Stuck?

Here’s a clue. Those readers who have worked with us for quite a few years will remember our early How To Do More Business With Business programme. I used to say to anyone who asked me about it:

“We help colleges to do more business with business.”

It’s a simple statement.
It’s memorable. (People still quote it back to me.)
It encapsulates how we helped colleges then – and now.
It’s also the sort of thing the customer wants to hear, because it’s a statement about the benefits the customer will gain. It’s not about the products and services the provider can offer.

Employers want to hear about benefits they will gain, not what you can offer, when you talk to them.

So, December is a good time for strategic planning. Give some thought to the essence of what you do.

Write it down.

Work on your statement and refine it.

Succeed here, and you’ll also go a long way to preparing to write A0 in your TQS application.